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Subject:RE: The Benefits of Printing In-House From:SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com To:TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Sat, 2 Oct 1999 13:48:49 EDT
A year ago we stopped using a print vendor and went to in-house printing. I'm
having second thoughts.
We were spending tens of thousands of dollars yearly on printing (all
printing, not just user documentation). One day a leased Xerox DocuTech 40--a
serious printer indeed!--appeared. Since then we've learned to print manuals,
full-color quick-reference cards, CD-ROM booklets, and the like. Our
documents tend to be small (20-150 pages), we can live with side-wire or
wire-o binding, and our print runs tend to be short (1-20 copies), so it
seemed like a good idea.
We have learned, though, what others have already pointed out: the facilities
person assigned to fulfill print requests was spending about 50% of his time
stoking the printer. He's gone off to law school, and the job's gone to the
Admin group, who've told us the first week of the month they're too busy to
print docs. Who's the backup? We are. Now the printer (I won't even tell you
what the monthly bill is!) is out of adjustment, we're printing books
ourselves part of the time, and the person putting in the wires keeps doing
it backwards, so that when you turn a page, if falls out. I fear we may have
tripled our printing costs while trying to save money.
(Of course, I *love* having the machine in house! We can do so many truly
neat things with it. But the cost and labor requirements are really a
problem. his discussion is making me think about suggesting some alternatives.
-- Steve
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Steven Jong, Documentation Team Manager ("Typo? What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc., 67 South Bedford St., Burlington, MA 01803 USA mailto:jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com -dot- nospam 781.359.4902 [voice]
Home Sweet Homepage: http://members.aol.com/SteveFJong
